Negotiations between the U.S. government and Lockheed Martin over the $400 billion F-35 Lightning II program have been tense. Defense News reports that one deputy program manager said that the relationship between the Department of Defense and Lockheed is "the worst I have ever seen."

After that comment was made, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta stated, "I don't know that I would portray it in those terms. These are difficult negotiations, as they always are when you're dealing with the amount of money and the complexity that's involved with the Joint Strike Fighter."

Defense News reports that last week Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter put his support behind comments made by Air Force Major General Christopher Bogdan. Bogdan had harsh words for Lockheed Martin’s failure to sign a contract with the Pentagon for 32 F-35 fighters after almost a year of negotiations.

However, Panetta does not agree that the relationship between the U.S. government Lockheed is the worst he's ever seen.

Lockheed F-35B Lightning II fighters [Source: Lockheed Martin]

“I don't share it, number one, because … I don't know the history of just how much has gone on in the past,” Panetta said. “But at least from what I have seen at this point, my view of it is these are very tough negotiations, but they aren't a reflection that either side has given up or thinks that the other side, you know, is in a more difficult state at all.”

Panetta is also reportedly unhappy that Congress won't be back in session until after the elections in November. An initial round of budget cuts in defense spending is set to begin in January. With Congress out of session until the elections are over, there is no chance of avoiding or delaying the defense spending cuts.

Panetta said, "I'll take whatever the hell deal they can make right now to deal with sequestration. The problem now is that they've left town and all of this has now been put off into the lame duck session."

“We need stability,” he said. “You want a strong national defense for this country? I need to have some stability. And that's what I'm asking the Congress to do: Give me some stability with regards to the funding of the Defense Department for the future.”

They've essentially butt-f**ked your country and your just about not feeling bad for them?

Some of you Americans are crazy. If this were anything other than a defense matter, you'd be demanding the head of each member of the company's board on a platter.

Imagine if Halliburton were contracted to build a new interstate, and it:- came in over twice the projected cost.- took double the time to construct.- was only 2 lanes wide in each direction instead of 3.

The F-117 could carry bombs (and AIM-9 externally as well*), its now over 30 years old.The B-2 could carry bombs, its now over 20 years old.The YF-22 could carry missiles, fly supersonically and maneuver better than anything else in the sky, its now over 20 years old.The Yak-141 was VTOL and could fly supersonically, its now over 20 years old.

There ain't half as much novel, never seen before things on the JSF as Lockheed Martin would like you to believe. Obviously, the more people like you there are, the easier ride they get from the general public.

Oh and to infer there are no unknowns and risks when building roads is a little bit disingenuous to civil engineers.

I don't see your point.Cars have been built before, electric engines have been built before, that doesn't mean we can easily build an electric car yet.Whenever you have to come up with something new, you can't just throw money at a problem and expect a result within a given time frame. It works sometimes, but not always.

quote: I don't know what you are not getting about the "multi-roll" aspect here and how it, combined with stealth, ballooned the development costs of the F-35 all to hell.

Right enough, sure what would I know about it? </sarcasm>

So was it stealth that caused the bulkheads to have fatigue issues?Or the tail hook to have completely the wrong geometry?Or the sensors to have too high a latency?Or significant vertical tail buffet?Or the horizontal tail to melt after prolonged afterburner use?

You've been sold up the river and are still in denial. I don't know why you are defending people who are talking your tax dollars and wasting them.

Some of the greatest fighters and bombers in the world had similar problems early on like you're describing. Hell some had worst!

Honestly Amiga, you're cynicism is not impressing me. I'm not in denial, and I haven't been "sold" anything. Stop pretending like we, as citizens, had any fucking thing to do with this!

I don't know what you've been told, but none of us had anything to do with the goddamn F-35! You've made your opinion clear, but now you're being extremely annoying and militant over it. To the point that you're blaming people who have no say in this stuff for the results.

Can you just drop the arrogance, the passive/aggressive bullshit, and calm down?

quote: You've no idea how much I'm dumbing this all down for general consumption.

Hey buddy, why don't you take this smug air of superiority and condescending act and go fuck yourself with it okay?

I'm sorry you have to "dumb" yourself down with us poor apes. But I'm pretty sure you're just some guy who reads Janes and the Wiki like everyone else. Are you an aeronautical engineer? Do you work for Lockheed? No. You have no more authority here than anyone else. You have an opinion, congratulations!

quote: I named a number of aircraft that each do things the F-35 claims to be able to do.

Yes but no single aircraft has ever had to do ALL the things being asked of the F-35 airframe. Hello? It's YOUR head this point is going over.

And you know what, I was never a fan of the damn thing anyway. But you're just such an asshole it makes agreeing with you nearly impossible.

Complete with doctorate, academic and industrial awards thank you very much.

quote: Do you work for Lockheed?

Are you nuts?!?

Why would a turkey vote for Christmas? If I was in Lockheed right now I'd be laughing all the way to a million dollar home.

quote: Yes but no single aircraft has ever had to do ALL the things being asked of the F-35 airframe. Hello?

I guess you aren't getting the bit where that isn't nearly as big a leap as Lockheed would like you to believe. Nor is it a leap into the unknown as much knowledge already existed in each field and integration of most aspects.

Otherwise what excuse would they have for not delivering the thing near time and budget?

quote: If this were anything other than a defense matter, you'd be demanding the head of each member of the company's board on a platter.

You don't think there many Americans who are questioning the cost (and cost overruns) of the F-35 program? This is probably why Panetta (and other DoD folk) are being scrutinized by their constituents.

If you want to get nitty gritty, let's look at your examples:

The F-117 - stealthy but not a fighter (can't dogfight or maneuver like a fighter)

The B-2 - stealthy but not a fighter ((can't dogfight or maneuver like a fighter)

The F-22 - Air Superiority Fighter (not the same thing as multi-role)

quote: There ain't half as much novel, never seen before things on the JSF as Lockheed Martin would like you to believe.

How many commercially successful fighter planes in existence can you think of that have supersonic capability, VTOL and stealth? If you also examine the F-35's avionics, tracking, networking, and targeting system, you'll find it's never been done before in the F-14/F-15/F-16/F-18, etc.

And why point out the 20-30 year age? You honestly think it's possible to design, engineer, build, test, win the govt. contract, and enter mass production in 3-5 years for a fighter plane?

You've no idea how much I'm dumbing this all down for general consumption.

Each one of those aircraft could do things the F-35 claims to do, but they could do it 20+ years ago.

There is not one single function on the F-35 that is "new" apart from certain aspects of EODAS. Yet all too often the same old lines are trotted out.

quote: How many commercially successful fighter planes in existence can you think of that have supersonic capability, VTOL and stealth?

That is utterly irrelevant to how big a balls they've made of it. There have been supersonic stealth aircraft before and there have been supersonic VTOL aircraft before. Yes, neither had the 3rd box ticked, but Lockheed are making ticking that box look the technical equivalent of putting a man on Jupiter never mind Mars.

If you want to roll out excuses, by all means continue to do so. But don't expect anything but derision and contempt from me in return.

quote: And why point out the 20-30 year age? You honestly think it's possible to design, engineer, build, test, win the govt. contract, and enter mass production in 3-5 years for a fighter plane?

The point you missed is that the people who actually know how to build the real next generation of military technology have all either been killed or have put down their tools and refuse to work with this corrupt regime. See the discussion above about Israel for a background on their reasons. So, what America has left now are untrained and mentally incapable "yes" men and the result is this debacle. Compare that to the amazing advances the Chinese have made and you can see that The US is not only in complete decline but is actually now just a failed state. Obama is presiding over the not so graceful withdrawal from top position. That's why Bibi is so pissed right now. The BRICS are the new world order and the US and old Europe are stewing in their own juices.

I heard the new russian Air to Air radar can now pick up the f22 at something like 10 miles and the F35 at about 25 miles. So the better term would be stealthy not stealth. I also heard that they are working on a system that can pick up the heat signature at over 50 miles.

But the russians are also fielding a stealth fighter so the F22 will have the same long range issue. The russians might actually be ahead of the US on developing systems to detect stealth planes since their adversary has been fielding stealth aircraft for longer. If you remember the Bosnians detected and shot down a f117 way back when.

Do you honestly believe a Russian stealth fighter would actually match an F-22 in real life?

Maybe I'm still living in the past, but the number of times I've heard about some Russian doomsday threat, only to find out it's a cheap facsimile of our technology 20 years out of date, crewed by poorly trained morons...well it's nothing new.

Yeah, I think some of the russian stuff in the right hands can really give are stuff a hard time. I was watching a topgun like training school where they were training US f18 pilots against german mig 29 pilots and it was not a slam dunk for our pilots at all. Plus they didn't allow the mig29 pilots to take the dogfight vertical where the mig29 had the clear thrust to weight benefit. I'm pretty sure the su37 is a far superior dog fighter to the f15. All out superior probably not, but it is probably a serious threat to the f22.

Put like this - in any hypothetical airwar over Europe in the late 80s, the Soviets would have destroyed NATO.

Our doctrine was very wrong, great in theory but terrible in practice. Their's was much more pragmatic and would have been far more effective. For instance, we had nothing to live with the MiG-29, HMS and A-11 archer combination. By the time tactics would have developed, the Soviet tanks would have been on the Atlantic and NATO personnel/equipment decimated.

Detailed analysis of the results of Gulf 1, combined with the exercises conducted post-cold war in unified Germany strongly indicate this.

With regards PAK-FA vs. F-22. Its... different. More maneuverable but higher radar signature. Which is the better trade off? Who knows - that'll be determined by weapons & sensor evolution over the next 20 years.

quote: Urgh - unfortunately that confidence is at times horribly misplaced.

We haven't lost a serious air engagement since, what, WWII? Okay maybe early Vietnam. But still, it's pretty hard to NOT be confident in our Air Force.

Also our last generation frontline fighter, the F-15, has NEVER been shot down in combat to this day. And that's all F-15's, including those sold to our allies. 104 (known confirmed) A2A kills, zero losses.

The last time we went up against a 'fearsome' Russian fighter, the MIG-29, it had it's ass thoroughly handed to it over Iraq. We also shot six down in the Kosovo War. Yet the paper scenarios said an entirely different thing.

Until I see some hard data on the PAK that points otherwise, I'll just assume it's another one-off copy of 20 year old American tech.

the best example would be provided by exercises performed by a newly united germany in the early nineties.

east german mig29's (their second rung mass export fighter) vs west german f16 (our second rung mass export fighter).

the mig29's annihilated the f16's in simulated combat.

is a mig29 a more advanced aircraft than an f16? - in many ways no - in some ways yes.

who knows what would have happened with a full blown war.

im glad we never found out.

i wouldnt dismiss USSR designed war material out of hand - they were a pragmatic and bloody effective bunch of psychos.

the current bunch of corrupt assclowns runnning russia fill me with much less confidence in their ability to build modern cutting edge things - for instance they have managed to take a bullet proof uber reliable rocket in soyuz and through sheer ineptitude made it into something decidedly risky (the cargo variant at any rate).

Not exactly a perfect example of fighter superiority. In Iraq the US Air Force had massive air superiority, and probably most importantly AWACS keeping track of everything happening in the air. Basically as soon as a Mig 29 started taxiing, AWACS was vectoring F15's onto their 6. Its basically a situational awareness thing, the mig pilot flying blind and the F15 pilots aware of everything going on. And as previously mentioned US air force pilots having much better training. Like I mentioned before when put in a more "fair" situation where they were flying highly trained german pilots in mig 29's against F18 pilots it was not a slam dunk for the f18 pilots at all.

You picked up the debate with others, but I'll clarify my own position a bit. I think LockMart should get beat up to the brink of going out of business, but I wouldn't want to try to really bury them too badly. We call that here cutting off your nose to spite your face. Actually having LockMart TRULY pay up for how shitty this deal has become would destroy them, and then we'd have an even more centralized military industrial complex.

In general though, I'm all for competitive bidding, and when contractors go over budget, they should cover it. This is only complicated by how freakin' huge the deal is, how lousy its worked out, etc, which I feel like the government shares some fault in anyway. Some adult should've stepped in MUCH earlier.

The Government asked Lockheed to build a shit sandwich, and that's essentially what we got. It's not Lockheed's fault. The same thing would have happened to anyone else taking this job on. The problem is, and always has been, the procurement process, not the contractors.

The F-35 was doomed from the start! In a genius (sarcasm) attempt to "save money" from the "costly" F-22, our venerable shitbags in Washington decided to build a joint strike fighter that could do about every job you could throw at it, while being stealthy, and also "cheaper" than the F-22. Gee, what could have possibly gone wrong with THAT plan!? And they based most of the "savings" on flim-flam non binding agreements by other nations to buy into this flying turd. Brilliant!!

quote: The Government asked Lockheed to build a shit sandwich, and that's essentially what we got.

To a degree I agree.

The need to fit on a LHD elevator is a killer.

quote: It's not Lockheed's fault.

There, I disagree. Lockheed stood up and said they could deliver X, Y and Z.

The powerpoint wizards didn't give a sh!t that X, Y and Z were unattainable, as long as they got the big juicy $$$ contract.

What they should have said was the program will be crippled by requirements A, B and C. It should be split into two programs, completely separate airframes.

But, then they wouldn't have the DoD over a barrel now with a single program that is probably too big to fail as everyone and their dog have been sold up the river on it. I have no doubt that was front and centre in Lockheeds thinking when delivering those bullsh!t powerpoint presentations.

quote: What they should have said was the program will be crippled by requirements A, B and C. It should be split into two programs, completely separate airframes.

Then they wouldn't have gotten the contract probably.

Lockheed is a business and their objective is to make money. In my business I routinely run across customers asking me to do really stupid things that often end up costing them more money. Oh well, it's not my job to enlighten them.

If you want to blame Lockheed for not educating the people who run the show, people who SHOULD know better, I think that's just scapegoating.

Look the money is spent at this point. All we can do now is just hope to hell the F-35 can be, somehow, made into a viable aircraft. Flipping out about it, calling Americans stupid, etc etc isn't going to do anything positive at this point.

And frankly, I'll repeat myself again, if we destroyed the ENTIRE department of defense, cut every cent of military spending, we would still be looking at a TRILLION dollar deficit!

The genius way to save money would have been to buy more F22's for fighter cap and keep the F16 in production as your affordable attack plane. The fact is attack planes don't have to be that sophisticated and you only need so many fighter cap planes, especially since a war with another nuclear world power is impossible.